My biggest issue, other than the fragmented storylines, was that the starship chase and Godspeed Maneuver™ made little tactical sense.
Why couldn’t the First Order simply swarm the capital ship with TIE fighters until it went down? Why are all the ships traveling at a fixed speed? Why hasn’t anyone else used the Godspeed Maneuver™ as a weapon? It seems like a hyperdrive would be one of the most deadly weapons in the galaxy if just any ship could do this.
Oh, and I don’t care if Phasma stays or goes.
Absolutely! I was thinking this as well. If going to hyperspace can be done even with a ship in the way then surely the Rebels could have just used this method to destroy either of the Death Stars no? At least the first one as it had no shield generator to protect it.
Yeah, it doesn’t make much sense. The only thing I can think of is that this Republic ship is even larger than any ship the Rebellion ever had, and if Hyperdrives get exponentially more dangerous the more mass is moving through Hyperspace, it might only become a danger with very large capital ships. And at that point, the waste of such a ship would be widely considered too great a cost for a suicide maneuver.
As for the issue of why the First Order is slowly running them down rather than destroying them with TIEs, perhaps the reason could be that Snoke wanted Leia alive so she could personally surrender to him, and he would also suspect that she would be the most likely person to have the location of Luke. This could be easily communicated in the crawl, and that way the First Order would just blockade the Resistance base until after most of the island scenes and when Leia decides to launch her attack.